A search for a missing plane carrying 10 people is under way in Alaska.

The Bering Air flight left Unalakleet at 2.38pm on Thursday but contact was lost less than an hour later, the firm’s operations director David Olson said.

Officials are trying to work out its last-known position but the coastguard said the Cessna Grand Caravan was 12 miles offshore as it flew across Norton Sound.

Tracking site Flightradar24 reported it at 5,300ft before contact was lost.

It was travelling from Unalakleet, a community of about 690 people in western Alaska, to Nome, a gold rush town just south of the Arctic Circle.

The flight time is normally just under an hour.

In a post on Facebook, Nome’s fire department said: “We are currently doing an active ground search from Nome and from White Mountain.”

It added: “We ask the public to please think of those who may be missing at this time, but due to weather and safety concerns please do not form individual search parties.”

Weather in Unalakleet at take-off time was -8.3C (17F) with fog and light snow, according to the US National Weather Service.

Bering Air serves 32 villages in western Alaska and air travel is often the only option of travelling long distances in rural parts of the US state, especially in winter.

“Staff at Bering Air is working hard to gather details, get emergency assistance, search and rescue going,” said Mr Olson.

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It comes soon after two major air accidents in the US in recent weeks.

Sixty-seven people were killed when a jet and helicopter collided in Washington DC and seven died when a medical plane crashed in Philadelphia.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked Donald Trump’s plan to get rid of government employees by offering them a payout.

The ruling came hours before the midnight deadline for workers to apply for the “fork in the road” deferred resignation programme – which has been commonly described as a buyout.

US district judge George O’Toole Jr, in Boston, did not express an opinion on the legality of the programme but scheduled a hearing for Monday at 2pm local time (7pm in the UK).

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He also directed administration officials to extend the deadline for the programme until after the hearing.

Mr O’Toole could opt to delay the scheme further or block it on a more permanent basis when he considers the legal challenge from unions on Monday.

The offer promises to pay employees their salaries until 30 September – but current spending laws expire on 14 March and it isn’t clear whether salaries will be funded beyond this point.

It comes as on Thursday, Mr Trump is set to sign more executive orders, one imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court and another tackling what he called anti-Christian bias.

The worker buyout scheme is part of a broader move from Mr Trump’s administration to shrink and reshape the federal government.

An important aspect of that has been Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency – and he orchestrated the federal worker buyout scheme as well.

Responding to the development, press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Sky News’ US partner NBC News: “We are grateful to the judge for extending the deadline so more federal workers who refuse to show up to the office can take the administration up on this very generous, once-in-a-lifetime offer.”

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She also said that more than 40,000 people had accepted the buyout so far – this figure corresponds to around 2% of the federal government’s 2.3 million civilian workforce.

NBC News reported this figure to be higher, at 60,000, citing a senior administration official.

Around 6% of federal workers retire or resign in a normal year, according to the Partnership for Public Service.

Labour unions and opposing Democrats have said the offer is not trustworthy.

The buyout covers not just employees at domestic agencies, like the Environmental Protection Agency, but intelligence agencies like the CIA as well.

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The administration also warned those who do not accept the buyout could still lose their jobs.

This is the latest of Mr Trump’s efforts to be blocked by a judge over concerns of legality.

Mr Trump’s effort to block birthright US citizenship has been blocked by a second federal judge in two days.

Donald Trump is not a man in the habit of backing down.

His astonishing proposal to “own” Gaza and relocate two million Palestinians has faced unanimous opposition from America’s allies, but the president now has a plan and woe betide anyone who gets in the way. And that includes international law.

“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of the fighting,” he wrote on Truth Social.

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Nevermind that Gaza is not Israel’s land to turn over.

“The Palestinians… would have already been settled in safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region.”

Nevermind that most countries in the region have angrily opposed this suggestion.

Aware, perhaps, that the prospect of US troops being sent to Gaza, possibly for decades, would meet opposition in Congress, Trump added “no soldiers by the US would be needed!”

Well that clears one question up. But who would be responsible for security in Gaza then?

Local police officers who are affiliated to Hamas? Private security contractors made of former American soldiers, operating under rules of engagement set by who?

While most of the world is recoiling at all this, in Israel they are leaning into it. Hard.

The defence minister, Israel Katz, has ordered the IDF to prepare plans to allow Gazans to leave by land, sea or air. This is being framed as voluntary migration, giving Gazans the freedom to leave for a better life elsewhere.

Some might. But what if most don’t. Then what?

Voluntary migration sounds nice and all, but how voluntary would it be, really?

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Palestinians, human rights organisations and others argue that after 15 and a half months of constant bombardment, Israel has left Gaza uninhabitable and so any departure would be down the barrel of guns that have been pointing at them for almost a year and a half.

Faced with all this, Trump, Netanyahu and their ministers continue to insist that only they know what’s best for Gazans.

Has anyone actually asked the people of Gaza?